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Judge Collette reflects on 39 years on the bench: 'The damage to the children... is just awful'

Judge William Collette has been a circuit judge since 1990. Before that he was a district judge for 11 years. Over those 39 years on the bench, he’s a developed a reputation as a no-nonsense jurist with a sharp tongue and efficient courtroom.

Judge Collette reflects on 39 years on the bench: 'The damage to the children... is just awful'

Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette, pictured in his courtroom Wednesday, June 27, 2018, his last full day of service. Collette has been a judge since 1979.(Photo11: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)Buy Photo

MASON - It’s a recent Wednesday afternoon at the old courthouse in downtown Mason, and a predictable cast of characters has assembled inside the stately third-floor courtroom.

A couple dozen people sit in the gallery, scattered across about 150 stadium-style wooden seats. Some of them are criminal defendants free on bail. Others are victims, or family members somehow related to a case. A few clutch their paperwork, or stare at smartphones. One man with a ponytail slouches so low in his seat he could be taking a nap.

Across the wooden railing at the front of the courtroom, several attorneys stand chatting, or scribbling notes on yellow legal pads.

A woman slips through a side door into the room and trumpets an order: “All rise.”

As the attorneys fall silent and the man with the ponytail ambles up to his feet, Judge William Collette strides into the room.

His raised desk, surrounded by wood paneling and flanked by portraits of Abraham Lincoln on one side and George Washington on the other, stands above the rest of the courtroom, and just below the Great Seal of Michigan.

It’s the courtroom where he tried his first jury trial as a young lawyer, and his last before he became a judge. It’s the “best courtroom in Michigan,” he’ll say later, as he prepares to say goodbye.

But for now, Collette is all business. “Thank you,” he tells the courtroom. “Sit down.”

The judge takes his seat, and the show begins.

'Stubborn as a goat'

Wednesday in Ingham County Circuit Court is motion day, when judges pause ongoing trials to take up smaller matters that need attention.

Dozens of defendants may appear over the course of the day, and they depart the courtroom with outcomes ranging from a new court date to a decades-long prison sentence. With so many moving parts, and the raw emotions of people who may be experiencing the worst day of their life, the atmosphere can resemble a circus if there isn’t a strong ringmaster.

Collette has been among the judges who “ran and controlled their courtroom,” said Toby White, a local defense attorney who estimated he’s appeared in Collette’s courtroom for about 20 years.

The judge shows little patience for people who aren’t ready and organized, and he lets people know it, White said. “He definitely kept you on your toes. Some guys can't take correction, but I tried to learn from it. He made me a better lawyer."

On this motion day, it takes about three hearings for Collette to voice his displeasure.

“Every week you’re in here on case after case after case,” he barks at a probation officer who wants a man punished for drinking while on probation. “I’m tired of you filing violation after violation after violation… it’s gotta stop.”

Moments later, Collette’s court reporter is the target: “You don’t have to grin at me or look at me. Just do your job.”

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30th Circuit Court Judge William Collette, uses a computer in his courtroom, located in a temporary facility in Mason, in 2006.(Photo11: Lansing State Journal file photo)

Collette has been a circuit judge since 1990. Before that he was a district judge for 11 years. Over those 39 years on the bench, he’s a developed a reputation as a no-nonsense jurist with a sharp tongue and efficient courtroom.

“When have I ever changed?” he asked an attorney during one recent hearing. “I never have… I am stubborn as a goat. I eat tin cans and stuff.”

Collette was born in a West Virginia coal camp but moved to Lansing with his family the summer after fourth grade. When the school year started Collette was placed into a combined fourth/fifth grade because he was, as he puts it, from “backwards West Virginia.”

“The next year I was in accelerated classes that they were starting,” he told the State Journal.

Collette graduated from Michigan State University in 1967. And while he remains a strong MSU supporter, he went to law school at the University of Michigan.

“I gotta be candid, I didn't know a lot about law schools and I didn't know (Michigan) was as hoity-toity as it was,” he said. “What I liked best about the U of M was they sent me a letter saying, 'We'll accept you, but you better send us money right away, or else.’

Collette returned to Lansing after law school and briefly worked for the state before landing a job as an assistant city attorney. He worked there for about three years before starting his own private practice.

Newspaper clipping from 1971 when William Collette was appointed to the city of Lansing's legal staff.(Photo11: File)

He did a lot of criminal work, including cases where he was a court-appointed defense attorney.

“I usually got pretty good results,” he said. “I won some murders and other types of difficult cases, rapes and things like that.”

But Collette worked long hours, often arriving at the office by 7:30 a.m. then working through lunch and into the evening. With a wife and young children at home, he longed for a better work-life balance.

“It just seemed that I wasn't going anywhere,” he said. “I smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and that was most of my day.”

In 1979 Collette got his wish — an appointment to a vacant seat in Lansing’s 54A District Court. He was 33.

'Best thing since sliced bread'

Collette worked the district court bench for 11 years, then beat out several other candidates for an open seat on the circuit court in 1990. In 1998 he moved from Veterans Memorial Courthouse in downtown Lansing to the circuit court's lone courtroom in Mason.

And while he originally announced plans to retire nearly a decade ago, Collette later changed his mind and in 2014 was re-elected to another six-year term. He can't run again in 2020, because people older than 70 cannot be appointed or elected to a Michigan judicial office.

So why retire now, two years before his term is up?

Newspaper clipping from 2009(Photo11: File)

“I'm 73, I'm still in reasonably good health," he said. "When you start feeling that you're used up" he said, then paused. "That's not the best word.”

“I want to make sure that I don't stay here and do things haphazardly,” he continued. “I still think I'm the best thing since sliced bread and I've always done my job to the best of my ability, and I'm very proud of the work I've done. But I don't want to lose that. And I think it's important that, when you're my age, and you've been here this long, that you pick a good time to leave.”

Collette presided over numerous high-profile cases over the decades. In a 1986 case that drew nationwide attention, he ruled that state Senator Basil Brown could face trial on felony drug charges. Brown later reached a plea deal with prosecutors.

Collette also oversaw the trial of suspected serial killer Matthew Macon, who in 2008 was convicted of murdering two women and assaulting a third, then sentenced to dual life sentences.

Some of those cases eventually began to wear on his psyche, Collette admitted.

“I have always been able, up until recently, to completely separate my individual emotions from my work. But some of these horrible cases that I've had recently involving small children — young children, young girls, have dramatically affected me. Much more than I ever would admit.

“I used to go home, have dinner and just sit there and not worry about it,” he continued. “But it's starting — I can feel, after all these years, things are starting to build on me a little. The damage to the children in this society that I'm seeing is just awful.”

'They might be meaner'

“Once he decided that he was going to retire he has relaxed a lot,” said Russel Church, the Ingham County assistant prosecutor who handles most cases before Collette.

“He, I think, has largely enjoyed these last six or eight months on the bench because the weight of how much longer he was going to do it has gone away.”

Collette cleared out his office at the end of June, although he’ll return later this month to wrap up a few more cases.

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Ingham County Judge William Collette pictured in his courtroom Wednesday, June 27, 2018, his last full day of service. Collette has been a judge since 1979.(Photo11: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)

“It was always fun to be in his courtroom on motion day because he did have fun with the lawyers, whether they were presenting a case or they were sitting in the gallery,” said White, the defense attorney. “It was entertaining.”

Indeed, back at motion day, Collette kept up the banter with defendants and attorneys throughout the afternoon, at one point warning the room that his replacement may be “Godzilla.”

“Stop hanging around these felons,” he told another defendant, before explaining that another judge would soon be taking over the case. “And as mean as I am, they might be meaner.”

“I’m seeing you more than I see my wife lately,” he quipped to an attorney appearing before him for the second time that afternoon.

“He's kept at it,” Church said, noting Collette recently oversaw a bench trial that some other judges may have pushed onto the replacement.

“He didn't leave it for somebody else to take care of. He's continued to do what the taxpayers have been paying him for for the last 40 years, right up to the end,” Church said. “He has chosen to be a public servant and has worked hard at it.”

'I've accomplished nothing'

Collette’s last official day is July 31. His replacement will likely be appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder, and serve until the end of his term in 2020.

“It is really gonna be funny not to be here,” Collette said as he looked around his office, with its bare walls and almost-empty desk. A black robe hanging by the door was the last vestige of a career that was about to end.

If he has concrete plans, the judge is keeping them close to the vest.

He said he’ll take it easy for a month or two, then weigh his options. Maybe he’ll work as a part-time visiting judge. If he does legal work, Collette said it won’t be as a trial lawyer.

“I was pretty nasty,” he said. “I guess I’ve developed a conscience — isn’t that sad?

"I represented some really bad people and got them good deals… I don’t know if I was doing society any good or not.”

Collette raised that issue — what has he accomplished? — more than once.

“I’m very disheartened when I see the grandchildren of people I sentenced 35 years ago come into court,” he said.

Collette recalls a day several months ago when he walked out of the courtroom after sentencing nearly a dozen teenagers for various crimes.

“I thought, you know, I've accomplished nothing," he said. "I haven't done anything. I've done nothing to make anything in this world better.”

It was a fleeting thought, he admits. Sometimes defendants come back into his life in a positive way, when they see him in public or send a letter thanking Collette for his leniency or tough love.

Back at motion day, Collette had worked through about a half-dozen hearings when he agreed to end one man's probation a little early.

“Thank you, and I hope not to see you down the road,” the man said.

“Well you won’t see me down the road,” the judge responded, in reference to his pending retirement.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for the county,” the man said.

“I like this," the judge fired back. "Maybe I should keep you on probation?"